Document Type : .
Authors
1 Imam Khomeini International University
2 Institute for the History of Science. University of Tehran.
Abstract
With the arrival of modern sciences in Iran during the Qajar period, some leaders of the Shaykhīyya, especially Muhammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī, wrote several treatises criticizing and rejecting the modern astronomy and the heliocentric theory. While no rejection of the modern astronomy by the Uṣūlī Shia scholars has been observed during this period. This difference in approach is probably rooted in the way of interpreting astronomical hadiths as well as the detailed metaphysical belief system that emerged from the time of Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsá’í. The leaders of the Shaykhīyya had a different understanding of cosmological and astrological hadiths than the Uṣūlī scholars. Unlike ʿallāmah Majlisī, who in Bihār al-Anwār considers cosmological hadiths to be scientifically unreliable and astrological hadiths to be precautionary dissimulation (Taqīyyih), Muhammad Karīm Khān Kirmānī interprets the hadiths of the first group in a way that is consistent with Ptolemaic astronomy and considers astrological hadiths to be valid. He also believed, following Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsá’í, in a hierarchical chain of being, according to which the farther away beings are from the source of grace (heaven), the denser and slower they become. In addition, he believed that the world of "Hūrqalyā", which is the intermediary between the world of Mulk and the world of Malakūt, is located the farthest from the Earth. All this led to the conclusion that the Earth is at the center according to the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian astronomical system.
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